secretary reich if we hit the fiscal cliff would it be devastating and hence we must do cuts in social security and medicare? >> first of all the fiscal cliff is a misnomer. it really is not a cliff. we can go over it and a lot of people won't feel much, particularly if democrats do what they say they're going to do, and that is pass a bill that makes the tax cuts retroactive to january 1 for the middle class. that's what democrats would do, giving them maximum bargaining with the republicans. we don't have a debt crisis. that's another might geology that a lot of people, republicans and media are talking about. there is no the a budget deficit crisis right now. in the years beginning 10 years from now, we will have very large budget deficits, but those are because of health care costs rising projected to rise very, very high and that's going to hurt medicare and medicaid, not because medicare and medicaid are the problems, but because underlying those medicare and medicaid problems programs are problems with rising health care. they're going to be problems for the whole country unless